An everyday tale of family and political life with a dollop of Formula One and various random thoughts on the side.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Yes Scotland must be desperate.......

Now, dear reader, you may not know me very well, but I would have thought that you would have realised that I was, to say the least, unlikely to be supportive of independence.

Why, then, in the name of the wee man (no, not our First Minister), is my photo appearing on the Yes Scotland website under a caption saying "Powered by people o' independent mind, like you"?

There I am, fifth from the left.I have to thank Jamie Glackin for disturbing my nice peaceful lunch by telling me about this.

Now, it's my Twitter avatar, which made me realise that they must be feeding in the photos of everyone who follows them on Twitter. Nice way to massage your numbers, people!

I mean, I follow lots of people on Twitter that I don't agree with:

Mitt Romney

Larry the Downing Street Cat

Ed Miliband

Tom Harris

Louise Mensch

Nicola Sturgeon

are just a few examples.

I even follow some people I absolutely can't stand. That'll be you, Lewis Hamilton and Daily Mail.

Following on Twitter should never be taken as an indication of support.

I mean, it would be different if I'd signed the Declaration of Cineworld, or liked them on Facebook, or something, but I haven't and I never would.

What's even funnier is that they've made me a profile page on their website - which I was never, ever aware that they were going to do - which awards me "political capital" points for tweeting about them. So far, I've amassed 50. But I was taking the mickey out of them, because one they've posted is about me being amused about their launch being on Towel Day.

The idea that I am somehow powering the independence campaign is ridiculous. Apart from anything else, we all know it's being financed by rich mainly men, some of whom don't even live here. That'll be you, Mr Connery. And then you had Brian Cox and Alan Cumming speaking the other day, and they don't live here either, though Cumming is, admittedly, coming back at some point. I guess they need every vote they can get. If Connery moves back prior to 2014, we'll know they're really toiling for support.

So, beware when you hear the Yes campaign bragging about how many supporters it has. They are counting the electronic equivalent of someone taking a leaflet off them in the street. I guess with the recent poll showing that only 27% of women and 33% generally are in favour of independence with a whopping 57% against.

It's not a terribly professional start to the Yes campaign admittedly.

Surely anyone using twitter recognises that not everyone who follows them will necessarily be supportive of their views. It's a silly mistake to have effectively paraded their twitter followers as supporters - probably an oversight on the part of whoever designed the website.

I wouldn't be too happy if I'd discovered that my likeness was being used to apparently endorse a movement whose objectives I disagreed with. So you're right to make the point.

What actually annoys me though is the big deal that's being made of this online. The "Yes" campaign have not deliberately attempted to claim non-supporters as actual supporters, it's simply unprofessionalism. A mistake of epic proportions, I'll agree, but an honest one at that. No-one has intended to mislead here.

Hopefully mistakes will be learned from. I for one don't care for unprofessionalism (I'm sure you know that!) but it's preferable to a slick campaign of negativity. You're right to hope for something better from the pro-union camp on the professionalism front - but surely the main objective for the "No" campaign should be communicating positive messages about Scotland's future?

So far there's not been a positive argument made in favour of the union, and that is far worse a state of affairs than a silly mistake by a campaign website only a few days old.